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My Journey to Being Published Part I

June 7th- I quit my job. I hated it; I cried on the way to work, I cried at work, I cried on the way home from work. My husband told me to quit, my mom told me to quit. I hate quitting. I also hate ulcers. I quit.

June 11th- I reread a WIP and decide to change almost everything about it, even though I’ve already written 10k words. I get to keep maybe 1000.

June 13th- Finally caught up to where I was; first intimate scene is coming up and I feel like I’m writing the beginning of a horror novel. DON’T GO INTO THE WOODS WITH HIM!!! Maybe I should rethink my choice of words, setting, characters?????

July 4th- My husband’s workplace is having a salsa (as in food not dance) competition. I decide to make my own. Five hours later I have canned 8 pints and I do not write that day.

July 16th- I am taking a break from writing. I am so close to being finished I can feel it. I can tell my writing has improved (there are no more thoughts that my characters are about to kill each other instead of do each other), everything is awesome. I will someday soon be a published writer. WhooHoo!! First though since I am unemployed I will go visit my family 9 hours away.

July 23rd- I didn’t get any writing done while visiting my family, I did get to see everybody though and eat some amazing food so I think the tradeoff was more than fair. I am bringing my twelve-year-old brother back with me though. I have 8 days to finish my WIP because I want to start another book for Camp NaNo.

August 1st- My brother is gone; my parents came to pick him up and spent a few days with us as well. I got no writing done. Oh well I can write 2000 words a day for camp NaNo and pump out the rest of my first WIP, surely.

August 2nd- Ok so I think I’ll shelve my first WIP and focus on NaNo because you know I should really finish this camp project. If I finish it I can get a t-shirt and be a part of an exclusive club!

August 8th- I am on track to finish on the 28th for camp NaNo. I’m doing great. Only problem is I can’t stop thinking about how close I was to finishing my first WIP, I also had an insane dream that with the addition of real world physics could probably be turned into an awesome sci-fi book. I stay up until 4 in the morning writing 2800 words on the first WIP and 500 words of notes for the new idea.

August 10th- Two days not working on my camp NaNo project isn’t going to kill me. I finally finish the rough draft on my first WIP. Yeah!!! I’m done right?

August 11th- I’ve spent several days looking at stock art sites and deviant art to try and find something for cover art. I emailed a few people and since I am not working I can’t afford the prices quoted to me. I find a stock photo that will work great but my mother recommends an artist that her neighbor’s son is going out with. Yeah I know. IT’S A TRAP!

August 11th- I contact my mom’s artist recommendation after looking at her deviant art gallery and loving it. Things seem to be fine though my specifications couldn’t be vaguer. I want it to be a wolf in the woods with two moons in the sky. Also I like these two photos of wolves that look nothing alike. Do your artist thing and make me something perfect! Since she is a college freshman she doesn’t send me an email back telling me I’m crazy. Meanwhile I am going through edits, completely setting aside the camp NaNo project. My current title is Three Things, though I hate it because all I can think when I read it is three penises and since it is not a book about group sex this title will not work.

August 13th- It is my five-year anniversary. My husband bought me a bonsai tree because it’s the wooden anniversary. I bought him The Raid on blu ray because it’s an awesome movie and I knew we were going to buy it anyway. He is the king of gifts. I’ve gone through and done loads of editing, I went from 43k words to just over 41k. I decide I want to print my book out cause I want to be able to mark it up with a pen. It is now called Untitled Sci-Fi Romance.

August 17th- I’ve read the entire thing twice, and made even more changes. Everything is getting better, scenes are tighter, and the men no longer sound like women. Things are falling into place. I go to print it off again, and I run out of ink. The new ink cartridge I purchased right before my last print out only had 120 pages in it evidently. Stupid ink. I shell out another $15 and realize I need to edit on the computer. My book is now titled Long Lost Memories. I am still not sure about the title, but I really want my second book to be called Long Lost Princess and wouldn’t it be cool if they matched?

August 23rd- Finished my final round of edits and I am now sending it off to be beta read and proof read. My mom who has been encouraging me the entire time is very understanding about why I don’t want to send the book to her. It has sex and language and she’s my mom (quick background on my parents they were going to be missionaries to Africa until my brother came along).

August 25th- Talk to my mom she mentions that my sister is reading the copy I sent her and seems to like it. I feel bad, and while my husband is screaming in the background not to do it, I email her a copy. I immediately wish there was an undo button on emails, and spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out my parent’s email password, I am unsuccessful.

August 28th- My sister calls me and we go over every page with all of her notes and the things she’s spotted that might not have been caught by proof reading. Either she really loves commas or I don’t love them enough. She seems to really like the book though and can’t wait for the next one. These words, while very much welcome, are taken with a pinch of salt since she is my sister and she loves me. Still no title, I have everyone trying to think of one though. Titles suck, I hate titles.

August 29th- Speak to my mom. Find out that she had printed my book off and SENT IT TO WORK WITH MY DAD. Oh my god. So embarrassed. Why did I send this to her?!? Evidently he did not like my choice of language and she has not had a chance to finish it, but she says that my writing is getting better and she just skips the sex scenes. Basically she’s skipped half of the book. That’s good. My title is now Stolen Memories. I like it. My sister likes it. My husband likes it. I think we have a winner!

August 30th- I decide that I want to publish before the long weekend so maybe people will buy my book to labor over. My cover artist has started her first semester of college and if her journal posts on deviant art are any indication she does not handle stress well. My cover was supposed to be sent to me yesterday but she had to put it off till today. Finally get what is supposed to be the final copy but she’s made some changes and wants to know what I think. I think I want the moons to actually show up. So I polity send her a message back. No word yet about the moons. She’s a kid and its 11 o’clock at night; she’s either ignoring the crazy vague woman or sleeping. Meanwhile I’m freaking out because I still have to set up a Facebook account, get the title and my name on the cover, set up a table of contents, and set up a mailing list; imbedding links to all of those things in the book as well. My husband who uploads apps for a living, including apps on kindle, has logged into my account is checking everything out. Since open office is free and my version of 2003 word no longer works for some reason I have to convert my .odt to a .doc. Computers hate me. Things are not going well, but my husband thinks he has a solution I just have to wait until tomorrow. I hate waiting.

In all fairness I think I should also mention, I could have probably written this a bit faster if I hadn’t gotten distracted by Netflix and the Writer’s Cafe on kindleboards.com, as well as recently Chefville on Facebook.